


scary love

by georgiehensley



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Character Study, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Introspection, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 19:58:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13597263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgiehensley/pseuds/georgiehensley
Summary: phillip carlyle is not the kind of guy who deserves love.





	scary love

**Author's Note:**

> [insp.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9zHa6SJ5w)
> 
>  
> 
> i really need to write for these two more. i love them a lot, but i just don't have the time or inspiration anymore. so, thanks, awesome fan video!
> 
> (it's not my video, of course. i do love the song, and i actually never thought to apply it to this ship before...)

phillip carlyle is not the kind of guy who deserves love. sure, he’s no criminal, but he's no good man either.

he drinks. a lot. far too much for a man of his age and stature. he blames his parents. if they hadn’t cast him out upon turning eighteen due to his love of the theater (as well as his shared love of both women  _and_  men), maybe he would have never turned to drink, drowning his sorrows in whatever the bartender served him. (drinking wasn’t all that bad, though. sometimes his best play ideas were written sloppily on a sticky bar napkin.)

when he isn’t drinking, he’s spending hours alone in his apartment, trying to come up with the next great american play. he shuts himself off from the rest of the world so that he can focus on his writing, hoping inspiration will strike him like a lightning bolt. (the only time he allows someone else in his apartment, really, are during one night stands. but they - man or woman - are almost always gone by the morning, leaving the apartment empty once more.)

so, he’s antisocial and an alcoholic. who would deem a man like that worthy of love and admiration?

 _answer:_ p.t. barnum, of course. that man can see the beauty in everything, from a three-foot-tall man to a fully-bearded woman. phillip is nowhere near that unusual, but he too fails to see what barnum sees in him. he’s not talented; he doesn’t have an act. he can write, and he can drink, but that’s about it.

but nevertheless, barnum sees  _something_ in him, something that makes his brown eyes shine as bright as the fiery displays in all of his shows whenever his gaze falls upon phillip. something that makes him chuckle with glee whenever he - quite literally - sweeps phillip off his feet as they playfully waltz around barnum’s grand mansion of a home. something that has him pulling phillip into his embrace as they lie together at night, only to wake up in the same position, kissing his much younger boyfriend good morning when the sun rises the following day.

whatever it is that barnum sees in him, phillip might never know. but it must be something pretty damn special.


End file.
